Inkdeath

20. A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

I'm sorry." Resa meant it. I'm sorry. Two words. She whispered them again and again, but Mo sensed what she was really thinking behind her words: She was a captive again. Capricorn's fortress, his village in the mountains, the dungeons, the Castle of Night… so many prisons. Now a book was keeping her prisoner, the same book that had imprisoned her once before. And when she'd tried to escape, he had brought her back.

"I'm sorry, too," he said. He said it as often as she did – and knew that she was waiting to hear very different words. Very well, let's go back, Resa. We'll find a way somehow! But he didn't say it, and the unspoken words gave rise to a silence they had never known, even when Resa was mute.

At last they lay down to sleep, although the sky was growing lighter outside, exhausted by the fear they had both felt and by what they didn't say to each other. Resa fell asleep quickly, and as he looked at her sleeping face he remembered all the years when he had longed to do just that: see her asleep beside him. But even this brought him no peace now – and at last he left Resa alone with her dreams.

He stepped out into the waning night, passed the guards, who ribbed him about the stench of the dye works that still clung to his clothes, and walked through the narrow ravine where they had set up camp, as though, if he only strained his ears hard enough, the Inkworld would whisper to him and tell him what to do.

He knew, only too well, what he wanted to do…

Finally, he sat down by one of the ponds that had once been a giant's footprint and watched the dragonflies whirring above the cloudy water. In this world they really did look like tiny winged dragons, and Mo loved sitting there, following their strange shapes with his eyes and imagining how huge the giant who had left such a footprint must have been. Only a few days ago he and Meggie had waded into one of the ponds to find out how deep the footprints were. The memory made him smile, although he was not in any smiling mood. He could still feel the shuddering sensation that killing left behind it. Did the Black Prince feel it, too, even after all these years?

Morning came hesitantly, like ink mingling with milk, and Mo couldn't say how long he had been sitting there, waiting for Fenoglio's world to tell him what ought to be done next, when a familiar voice quietly spoke his name.

"You shouldn't be here on your own," said Meggie, sitting down beside him on the grass. It was white with frost. "It's dangerous to be so far away from the guards."

"What about you? I ought to be a stricter father and forbid you to take a step outside the camp without me."

She gave him an understanding smile and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Nonsense. I always have a knife with me. Farid taught me how to use it." She looked so grown-up. He was a fool, still wanting to protect her.

"Have you made it up with Resa?"

Her anxious expression made him feel awkward. Sometimes it had been so much easier to be alone with her.

"Yes, of course." He put out a finger, and one of the dragonflies settled on it. It looked as if it were made of blue-green glass.

"And?" Meggie looked inquiringly at him. "She asked them both, didn't she? Fenoglio and Orpheus."

"Yes. But she says she didn't come to an agreement with either of them." The dragonfly arched its slender body. It was covered with tiny scales.

"Of course not. What did she expect? Fenoglio isn't writing anymore, and Orpheus is expensive." Meggie frowned.

He stroked the insect with a smile. "Watch out, or those lines will stay, and it's rather too early for that, don't you think?" How he loved her face. He loved it so much. And he wanted it to look happy. There was nothing in the world he wanted more.

"Tell me one thing, Meggie. Be honest with me – perfectly honest." She was a far better liar than he was. "Do you want to go back, too?"

She bent her head and tucked her smooth hair back behind her ears. "Meggie?"

She still didn't look at him.

"I don't know," she said at last, quietly. "Maybe. It's a strain, feeling afraid so often. Afraid for you and Resa, afraid for Farid, for the Black Prince and Battista, for the Strong Man…" She raised her head and looked at him. "You know Fenoglio likes sad stories. Maybe that's where all the unhappiness comes from. It's just that sort of story…"

That sort of story, yes. But who was telling it? Not Fenoglio. Mo looked at the frost on his fingers. Cold and white. Like the White Women… Sometimes he woke from sleep with a start because he thought he heard them whispering. Sometimes he still felt their cold fingers on his heart, and sometimes – yes – sometimes he almost wanted to see them again.

He looked up at the trees, away from all the whiteness below. The sun was breaking through the morning mist, and the last few leaves shone pale gold on branches that were now almost bare. "What about Farid? Isn't he a reason to stay?"

Meggie lowered her head again. She was taking great care to sound casual. "Farid doesn't mind whether I'm here or not. He thinks only of Dustfinger. It's been even worse since he died."

Poor Meggie. She'd fallen in love with the wrong boy. But when did love ever bother about that?

She tried very hard to hide her sadness when she looked at him again. "What do you think, Mo? Is Elinor missing us?"

"You and your mother certainly. I'm not so sure about me." He imitated Elinor's voice. "Mortimer! You've put that Dickens back in the wrong place. And why do I have to tell a bookbinder not to eat jam sandwiches in a library?"

Meggie laughed. Well, that was something. It was getting harder every day to make her laugh. But next moment her face was grave again. "I do miss Elinor very much. I miss her house, and the library, and the cafe by the lake where she always took me for an ice cream. I miss your workshop, and you driving me to school in the morning and imitating Elinor and Darius quarreling, and my friends always wanting to come and visit us because you make them laugh. I'd love to tell them everything that's happened to us, not that they'd believe a word of it. Although – perhaps I could take a glass man back with me as proof."

For a moment she seemed to be far, far away, taken back to her old world, not by the words of Fenoglio or Orpheus, but by her own. But they were still sitting beside a pond in the hills around Ombra, and a fairy fluttered into Meggie's hair and pulled so hard that she shrieked, and Mo was quick to shoo the little creature away. It was one of the rainbow-colored fairies, Orpheus's creations, and Mo thought he detected something of her maker's malice in the tiny face. Giggling happily, she carried her pale blond plunder up to her nest, which shimmered in as many colors as the fairy herself. Unlike the blue fairies, those made by Orpheus didn't seem to grow drowsy as winter came on. The Strong Man even claimed that they stole from the blue fairies, too, as they slept in their nests.

A tear hung on Meggie's lashes. Perhaps the fairy had caused it, or perhaps not. Mo gently wiped it away.

"I see. So you do want to go back."

"No! I tell you, I don't know!" She was looking at him so unhappily. "What will become of Fenoglio if we simply disappear? And what would the Black Prince think, and the

Strong Man, and Battista? What will become of them? And Minerva and her children, and Roxane… and Farid?"

"Yes, what?" said Mo. "How would the story go on without the Bluejay? The Piper will take the children, because even the desperate mothers won't be able to find the Bluejay for him. Of course the Black Prince will try to save them, he'll be the true hero of this story, and he'll play the part well. But he's already played the hero too long, he's tired – and he doesn't have enough men. So the men-at-arms will kill him and all his followers one by one: the Prince, Battista, the Strong Man and Doria, Gecko and Snapper – well, perhaps those two will be no great loss. Then the Piper will probably chase the Milksop out and rule Ombra himself for a while. Orpheus will read unicorns here for him, or a few war machines… yes, I'm sure the Piper would rather like those. Fenoglio will drown his sorrows in wine and drink himself to death. And the Adderhead will be immortal. Someday he'll reign over a nation of the dead. I think the end of the story would go something like that, don't you?"

Meggie looked at him. In the light of the new morning her hair looked like spun gold. Resa's hair had been just the same color when he had first seen her, in Elinor's house.

"Yes. Perhaps," said Meggie quietly. "But would the story really end so very differently if the Bluejay stayed? How could he give it a happy ending all by himself?"

"Bluejay?" A couple of toads jumped into the water in alarm as the Strong Man plowed his way through the undergrowth.

Mo straightened up. "Maybe you'd better not call that name quite so loud in the forest," he said, lowering his own voice.

The Strong Man looked as horrified as if men-at-arms were already standing among the trees. "Sorry," he muttered. "My head doesn't work well so early in the morning, and all that wine last night… It's the boy. You know, the one who works for Orpheus, the one that Meggie -" He stopped short at the sight of Meggie's expression. "Oh, whatever I say sounds stupid!" he groaned, pressing his hand to his round face. "Plain stupid! But that's how the words come out of my mouth. I can't help it!"

"Farid. His name is Farid. Where is he?" Meggie's face lit up, although she was making a great effort to look indifferent.

"Farid, of course. Funny sort of name. Like something out of a song, eh? He's in the camp. But he wants to speak to your father."

Meggie's smile was extinguished as quickly as it had come to her lips. Mo put his arm around her shoulders, but a father's hug was no use to a lovesick girl. Damn the boy.

"He's all worked up. He must have ridden here so fast his donkey can hardly stand. He woke the whole camp, asking: 'Where's the Bluejay? I have to speak to him!' No one could get anything else out of him!"

"The Bluejay!" Mo had never heard Meggie sound so bitter before. "I've told him a thousand times already not to call you that. How can he be so stupid?"

The wrong boy. But what did the heart care about that?